Hey guys,
I’ve been playing around with this catenary structure. I’d like the catenary curves to be pipe supports, but the way I have it at the moment, the curves start on one side of the structure and terminate on the other. I’d like the curves for the pipes to be centred to support the panels. For the life of me, my brain is drawing blanks (mostly because I am pretty new at grasshopper still) on how to generate the curve originating at the centre of the loft for the thickness of the panels. I just don’t know where to begin the start point of the curve - if I connect it to the offset surface node or the loft node… or which command to use from there. Please help.
I have been studying your design. And I do not understand what you want.
It was hard to open and work on it. Advise: Choose your numbers low, while still working, so your (and surely my) computer can respond fast. Later when it all works you can input the exact you need.
Thanks for taking the time to try and help. I appreciate it. The ideal outcome would look like metal support curves with timber slats in between with gaps for ventilation/ sunlight. I have attached an image of the structure when it’s baked to show how the supports seem to criss-cross through the cladding rather than running properly along the surface. The supports are based on curves generated by the catenary node. You can see below that the curves originate on one side of the cladding, and I think this is where I am going wrong. Do I need a second set of curves from the other side of the cladding and then find an average of the two? I am not sure of the best logic to apply here.
Is this what you want? If so have a look at the command: Tween Curve
to place a curve “in between”
Other option is to go back to the start, create double number of curves. cull every second, use the second set for panels and with List Item choose the others as support.
Without having time to get fully into this, unfortunately, I’d observe that if the supports truly follow the catenary curves then it is the cladding that is in the wrong place.
One issue comes from the fact that catenary curves are generated as polylines; when you rebuild the loft surface, the result is not perfectly adjacent to the original curves anymore. You have to rebuild those polylines as NURBS curves before lofting (without rebuilding) and using them as pipes. To have the pipes exactly in the middle of the panels, you’ll also have to offset them in both directions (inside and outside of the original surface). I’ve added a couple of data dams before the more computationally heavy operations.
Yes! Thank you. Also, thank you for the explanation about where I was going wrong. I still have a lot to learn about Grasshopper, so really appreciate the feedback.
